


By Any Other Name

by esama



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 07:44:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were many times John Watson came to Death's Door - only to be pulled back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Any Other Name

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on fanfiction.net on 01/26/2012  
> Proofread by Darlene and Sarah

1.

 

John Watson doesn't remember it clearly, that first time, but in hindsight he knows it happened when he was around seven.

There was a tree not far from his family home, a gnarled old oak, twisted and thick limbed, that didn't as much reach towards the sky as it reached towards _everything_ with its thick branches and wild leaves. His father always told him that he shouldn't go near it, that he definitely shouldn't _climb_ it, but that order only made the gnarled tree look even more enticing, like the greatest adventure of his entire life. Which, considering that his life was only so long at that time, it was.

John doesn't remember the climbing itself, not as a process, just as snippets of it. He remembers the feel of the bark beneath his fingers; he remembers the way his view everything changed angle as he went higher. He remembers how easy it had been, but how his breathing had gone erratic, more with the excitement than from the exercise.

He doesn't remember the fall. What he does remember, is waking up on the drawing room divan, with his brother looking anxiously down at him while his father spoke to a strange black haired man in a black suit and spectacles, saying, "…know how to thank you. If you hadn’t seen –" and the stranger answering easily, "Oh, think nothing of it, it’s an adult's duty to take notice of such things."

Later, when the strange man had left, and his father is done yelling at him – telling him he's never to go near the old oak again – he hears the details from his brother. "You fell from the old oak," his brother says, and he looks slightly afraid. "Mr. Potter, that’s the man who just left, saw you and caught you as you fell. It's the only reason you didn't injure yourself, or worse."

"Oh," John answers.

He doesn't think more on the man who saved him, and the guilt keeps him from climbing the tree again, guilt spun by the anger from his scared father, and the look in his brother Harry's eyes. The thirst for adventure is never quite quenched though, and maybe that was the starting point of everything.

Later, many, many years later, he thinks back and decides that it's the first time Mr. Potter had stepped in.

 

2.

 

The second time it happens, as far as he knows anyway, it’s a blur of fever and delirium. John lies on the slightly dirty linens of the base hospital in Peshawar, half dead and mad with the fever that wracks his body, with the pain that his shoulder and leg radiate. Things happen to him in a haze, doctors coming and going, nurses feeding him, cleaning him, days and nights turning. Entire days go by without his notice, while at other times he stares dully at something for mere seconds, and they feel like years.

He knows, distantly, that he has enteric fever, which had set on him shortly after his injury – that damn water in the base camp - God, it had been vile – but there is little he can do about it. He knows that it will either pass, or take him with it, weakened as he was by his wounds.

"You're a lot of work, you know," a man speaks to him through the haze of heat and ice and the stink of sweat and urine. There is someone standing over him, something dark, and it takes a moment for John to see the black clothing, the black hair, the eyeglasses. The piercing green eyes that seem to glow in the haze. "Going to a war, of course my principal would go into a war. Geez."

He's holding up a syringe, and then he’s lowering it. There is a pinprick of pain in John's arm, and through the urge to faint, die, sleep and never wake up, John groans. "What are you… giving me?"

"Antibiotics," the man says, pulling the empty syringe back. "They should take care of the typhoid fever. Now, let's have a look at your wounds."

John can't fight back, only moan incoherently, as the man tugs his blankets and night shirt aside to see his shoulder, his leg. The man's eyes seem to glare with their green, unearthly glow against his pale, shadowed face, and for a moment John is certain he's being visited by a spirit, rather than a man. "They don't seem that bad, but we'll see, won't we?" the man says, and rearranges John's clothing and blankets. "I'll be back, John Watson. Don't die in the meantime."

The man does come back – twice. The second time he doesn't say anything, just check's John's wounds while John fights a new bout of fever, which somehow is different from the last, and an odd bout of depression and lethargy that has struck him. The third time, a week or so later, the green eyed man feeds John a couple of small white pellets, ignoring his objections.

"There," the green eyed man says, satisfied. "You'll live."

Who are you? John wants to ask, needs to, because he’s gotten better uncommonly fast since the man's first appearance – the enteric fever is all but gone, and they’re already planning to send him back to England, now that he could be moved safely.

But the green eyed, black haired man is gone before he can get a word out.

 

3.

 

It is the most foolish thing, the third time. Holmes has gone ahead of John in a mad chase, trying to run down the escaping criminal, and John's leg holds him back, twisting and spiking with pain, while his laboured breathing make his shoulder feel like someone is twisting a knife in it. John stops, tries to catch his breath, not for the first time wondering how, _when_ , had his life become so mad. His blood thunders in his ears, noisy and elated with the joy of the chase.

He’s only saved from being run over by a hansom cab by a hand that takes hold of his lapels and bodily drags him out of the way. As John's back crashes into the wall of the building next to him, the four wheeler continues on, the cabbie shouting insults at John as the horses' hooves and the carriage's wheels thunder against the cobblestones. John barely hears; too busy gasping with surprise, staring at his saviour.

It is a man with wild black hair, and green eyes nearly glowing behind their black framed glasses. "Could you at least _try_ to look where you stop?" the man asks with exasperation while releasing his hold on John's now rather crumpled jacket.

"Excuse me?" John asks, still too high on his own excitement, to sound anything but insulted.

"Next time try and stand on the side of the road, not in the middle of it, alright? Fine mess it would be if you died because you were ran over by a _horse_ ," the green eyed man snorts, stepping back. "Go on then. You have somewhere to be, don't you?"

"Excuse me," John says again, but with more calm. "Do I know you?"

"Go on," the man says, and then turns and continues down the road. For a moment John is sorely tempted to follow him, but he can hear Holmes calling for him somewhere far ahead, and remembers the criminal, the stolen bracelets, and quickly he sets off again.

 

4.

 

It's a dark, desperate night on the Moors of Great Grimpen Mire. There are no more cries from Stapleton, nor would there ever be again. The master of the hound that had nearly killed Henry Baskerville was gone, claimed by the moors. John shivers, and glances at his companion, who stares at the moors with an unreadable expression.

"There," Holmes says, once he is sure. "Let's go back."

John spends a final moment, looking at the moors, wondering. Maybe there might've been a chance that he could've saved the man – Stapleton hadn't been that far away, and yet… no, Holmes was right. The moors would've claimed John just as surely as they had claimed Stapleton, who was familiar with the ways of the Great Grimpen Mire. It wasn't worth the risk, even to try and save a life.

With a sigh, he turns to follow Holmes, who is a little ahead. Maybe it's the excitement, the rush, or the fatigue that now settles upon him, but he barely looks where he steps, and the effect of that is instant. His foot sinks immediately into the sand, all the way to the ankle and sinking fast - and his other foot is quick to follow. "Oh, blast it," John grumbles, almost losing his balance and ending with one knee down in the sand. He quickly lifts his head to call for Holmes when arms grasp him by the waist and begin to haul him up.

It's a slow process, as the mire tries to drag him down, sucking at his feet like a whirlpool of sand and soil, but eventually the sand relinquishes its hold, and John is pulled back, and to solid ground. "Oh, thank you, Holmes. I really should watch where –" John says, turning, and it's not Holmes.

"Yes, you really should. I told you something about that the last time, didn't I?" the green eyed man asks irritably.

"You," John breathes, confused and shocked because he is absolutely sure he and Holmes had been alone – and that he really, really would’ve heard if someone else was nearby.

"Yes, me," the black haired man says, and releases John. "Now, the way's _that way_ ," the man says, pointing. "Try and stay on track, alright? And watch where you're stepping."

John turns to see where he was pointing – yes, that was Holmes's lamp, right there. "But –" he starts to say, turning back to face his saviour.

The man is gone.

 

5.

 

The fifth time comes and goes oddly. Later, when John writes down the Adventure of the Copper Beeches, he doesn't write down what happened to the mastiff, not really. Because what really happens doesn't make sense.

At the time, though, the events flow from action to action at such a fast pace that, oddly enough, makes it even plainer what does happen. Rucastle had just released the mastiff to chase John and Holmes down, but the dog had attacked its master instead, ravenous and wild and deadly, going right for the man's throat. When John steps forward, his revolver held steady, ready to kill the dog before it killed the man, the beast turns to him. And attacks him.

And falls to the ground, dead as a rock, for no visible reason. The shock of it, the surprise of having the dog lunge at him only to fall down like a stone, makes John squeeze the trigger convulsively and put a bullet into the already dead beast, before he even realised what happened. Then, shocked, he looks around – Rucastle is too wounded, he didn't see, and Holmes is right behind John, he didn't see either.

And there, just behind the corner of the house, stands a black haired, green eyed man, just putting something – a weapon? – away. John doesn't get the chance to do more than lower his revolver and open his mouth, as the bespectacled man turns and vanishes behind the house.

Then John is too busy trying to save Rucastle from the wounds inflicted by the dog to even think of going after his odd, mysterious saviour.

 

6.

 

It was utter madness, utter complete madness, John thinks as he and Holmes try and escape their first – and hopefully last – true burglary. Charles Augustus Milverton was dead, _murdered_ , and he and Holmes had been right there, they’d seen everything – they’d _witnessed it_ without doing anything to stop it. And now they were engaged in the desperate attempt of escaping the crime they had seen, as well as what they had done and –

"Hurry up, old man!" Holmes hisses at him.

– and John had never been so excited in his life.

"This is madness Holmes," John hissed at his partner – in crime, now, as well as justice – as they inch their way through the garden, while inside the house the alarm was being raised, notice was being taken.

Holmes answers nothing, just stills, waits, and then lunges forward, seeing some opening that was complete beyond John's eyesight. John moves to watch, when behind him someone calls, "There, right there! I can see them!"

Instinctively John turns around, to see the maid looking out of a window – looking right at them! But the maid isn't all that John sees, because there is another figure in the shadows, standing just beside the window outside the maid's line of sight, leaning on the wall casually, as if nothing particularly extraordinary was going on.

John foolishly stops, but unable to help himself, as the figure in the shadows lifts something long and sleek, pointing it at the maid – a _gun barrel_? No, it isn't, but it is something, because the moment he does, the maid servant stops calling, her face going completely devoid of excitement, or any emotion what so ever. The maid turns, blank faced and empty eyed, and returns to the house like a woman bewitched.

"Go, you idiot," the green eyed man snaps at him, putting his odd, magical tool away. "Do you _want_ the gallows?!"

"Watson, damn it all!" Holmes calls a hushed demand from somewhere ahead. John swallows, looks at the green eyed man for a moment longer, before turning and fleeing.

 

7.

 

The seventh time he meets the green eyed man is the most memorable one.

John stands alone on the cliffs of Reichenbach Falls, staring in mute disbelief at the down rush, the swirling depths below, the great cloud and splatter of airborne water, sent into the air by the impact below. Alone, where not that long ago, before the fake note had called him away, he and Holmes had stood.

He looks down at the note Holmes had left him, too still with shock to even shake with it yet, and his mind turns slowly, dully, like time itself had slowed down. … _and believe me to be, my dear fellow, very sincerely yours. Sherlock Holmes_ , the note ends, sweetly and cruelly and oh so elegantly all at once, and John can't think.

"Don't you dare," a voice behind him says, before the thought even comes to John, how easyit would be just to take few steps. "I'll knock you out and drag you back to the village. And I won't be gentle about it."

John turns, and comes face to face with a green eyed, black haired man in a black suit, wearing spectacles. Somehow, at this point, he's not even surprised. "Why?" he asks, and the entirety of the tragedy seems to condense into that question, coming out as a quivery wail, more than as a word.

The man, who seems to have stalked him for an eternity now, pulling him back from death's door over and over, smiles crookedly. "You still have work to do, John Watson," he says, and holds out his hand. "Come on. Step down from there."

"Work? What _work_? What could there possibly –" John stops, and turns around, to look at the waterfall again. It rushes on, and for a moment it sounds like Holmes, screaming his name. John swallows, desperately wanting to call back, and a hand closes around his wrist, pulling him back.

"Come on," the green eyed man says. "You have stories to write and history to make. It's not the end. Come on."

John fights for a moment, because he doesn't want to leave, can't, not without Holmes… without Holmes… god, he can't even think it, it can't be possible, it can't – "Holmes!" he yells out at the rush of the waterfall. "Holmes!"

As the green eyed man pulls him a way, gentle but insistent, it really sounds like someone yelling for "Watson!" in the roar of the water.

 

8.

 

The green eyed man is there often in the following years, coming and going without notice, always appearing when John's depression was at its worst, and some deadly things – a glass of alcohol, a syringe, an old service revolver – looked tempting. It wasn't very often, not with Mary there to save John from the worst of his heart break, but it did happen, most often when she was gone. And then…

"I think I shall be taking your guest room for a while," Mr. Potter – for that is his name, John's learned that so far, even if it was the only thing he’d learned – says. It is two days after Mary's death. "I'll pay for it, and I’ll help around the house and so forth, but you won't be getting rid of me for a while."

"So I gathered," John says, without bothering to lift his head from his hands, not wanting to look at the world for a while. He wants to lie down and never get up again. Lay down somewhere between Holmes and Mary. Where he belonged.

There is a hand on his shoulder, gentle and insistent, like Potter always is. "It's not the end," he says.

"So you keep saying," John answers, unwilling to look up.

"It's not. For a while it might seem like it, but it's not," Potter sounds determined, and for a moment there is silence, with the man standing over John, holding him up by the force of that single, simple point of contact. "I'll handle the funeral arrangements and everything," the man then says. "You just… grieve in peace."

"No, it's my duty, I must –"

"You must stay alive," Potter says firmly, and pats his shoulder. "You must recover. So just concentrate on that, and let me handle things."

At this John looks up, ready to object, argue, insult and accuse. But the serious look on his saviour’s face stops him – and he knows that Potter will do this and more, just to save him from that deadly depression. "Who are you? Why do you do this?" John asks, thinking back to all the times before. "Why me? What is there that’s so special about me?"

Why him, why not Holmes? Surely Holmes needed a guardian angel more than John did.

"Because you create something incredible," Potter answers, shrugging his shoulders. "And you can't die before your creation is complete. I'm sorry, but I won't let you."

"What?" John asks, shocked. "I create… what is it? What could be so important?"

Potter chuckles, and pats his shoulder again. "Rest, John Watson," he says, turning away. "I'll handle everything."

 

9.

 

It's long time, nearly three years, until John sees Potter after Holmes' return. When he does, the situation isn't exactly ideal.

There’s a swirling mass of chaos and horror before him, curling inside him, filling his senses – he knows, somewhere at the back of his mind, that it’s only an illusion of things that don’t existed, created by the poison Holmes had put on the lamp's smoke guard, but it is so real. John shakes and shivers and he’s sure he knows this – it's somewhere from Maiwand, perhaps, or from Holmes's mind, those dark depths of his intellect John can't follow. And it’s enticing and horrible, he laughs at some point and screams the next, because it’s overwhelming, more than a man's mind can handle and then...

Then he can breathe again. The glare of green pierces through the fog of horror and he sees where he is – in the cottage, sitting on an armchair below the open window, and across from him is Holmes, screaming out in mindless, wordless terror. Without thinking John pushes past Potter, past the table and the horrible lamp that breathes its fog of terror into the room. He almost knocks right into Holmes and with the single mindedness of a terrified animal knocks his screaming friend down from the chair and then out the open door, out of the horrible room.

It takes Holmes a moment to come to his senses, and while he recovers John looks around wildly. He can see the shadow of Potter who still stands in the room, not bothered in the least by the poisonous, horrible smoke. With a flick of his hand, Potter extinguishes the lamp.

"You bloody fool," the green eyed man says to John, and then he's gone, just as Holmes regains his composure.

"Upon my word, Watson," the great detective gasps. "I owe you my thanks and my apology."

John turns away from the room, giving his attention entirely to his partner, though he can't help but wonder. It had been so long that he had nearly managed to convince himself that Potter was naught but a creation of his imagination. But here he’d been again – just in time to save John, and for him to save Holmes.

"Watson?" Holmes asks, frowning at his expression. "Watson, is something the matter?"

"Ah, no. No, it's nothing, Holmes," John said and shook his head. "Come. Let's get away from this awful stench."

 

10.

 

In the following years, Potter came and went, pulling John back from a gunshot once, away from a poisoned dagger, knocking out the ruffian that would've taken John's life, and pushing aside the falling beam that would've crushed the breath out of John. The incidents are sudden, and haphazard, sometimes happening only a few days apart, and sometimes years go by. Potter never answers any of his questions straight – often he says nothing at all, which is understandable seeing that most of their encounters last no more than few seconds, and then John has to chase after Holmes, or a criminal, or a clue.

John's lost count how many times it’s happened, when it happens the last time. Potter is there to snatch away the cocked revolver from a drunken youth, so eager to go to war that he's ready to start one in the local pub. John, who’d been having a drink to the memory of the war he had once fought, despite much it hurt to be the old broken soldier amongst these new, young ones, merely blinks at him, too adjusted to his appearances now.

Then Potter comes to hom, passing by the counter to hand the revolver to the serious bartender who hides it beneath the counter. John's guardian angel – who looks exactly the same as he has _every time_ John had seen him – sits down and says something that ends it. "This'll be the last time."

John, now an old man deep into his retirement, living comfortably but alone, supported by several years of writing and general practice, says nothing. He's too old, too sly with age, not to know what that means. "How long do I have?"

"Oh, I have no idea," Potter shrugs, snapping his fingers at the bartender and ordering two shots of brandy. "You might live thirty more years if you're lucky, but it's not my problem anymore. Your creation is complete, has been for a while now. I just came to say good bye." He offers John the other glass. "Here. To your health."

"Thank you," the old man nods, accepting the drink. They toast, and drink. "My… creation," John then says and snorts. He has only a vague idea what Potter means, but he can't quite understand it. "I don't see why my writings are that important."

"Why? You really have no idea, do you?" Potter asks, and then laughs, the first time he ever has in John's presence. He looks so young, younger than John ever remembers being. Immortality must be nice.

"Good god, you really have no idea. Don't you know that you've created an entire branch of science?" Potter asks. "Forensic science! Well, your Holmes was the one who invented it, but it's your writing that makes it common, known, famous. Holmesian Science, as explained by Doctor John Watson. Not to mention the stories themselves – you've created an entire world and millions and millions of people will know that, one day. Millions and millions of people will read your stories, know them by mention or heart. One day, you can't _say_ the words, Sherlock Holmes, without it being a reference to intelligence, cunning, and analytical thinking."

John blinks, not entirely sure he can believe it. Oh, sure, plenty of people read his stories even now, but… well, he has more critics than he has admirers, these days. The times moved on, after all, and his stories and Holmes's methods in them grew old.

"The reason why you needed protection was more or less our fault. It was an experiment gone wrong – a strand of time got caught, and started unravelling," Potter sighs, sipping his drink. "Namely, the time strand that had to do with forensic sciences. It's a long story, has a lesson in it about situating your law enforcement offices right above the laboratory where people experiment with the time stream." He snorts softly. "The Ministry will know better next time, I think."

"I… don't understand," John admits.

"It's okay, it doesn't matter anymore. It took some time, but we managed to fix it," Potter shrugs, and looks at him. "The bones of it is that for a while people involved in the creation of that thing – forensic sciences, namely – were in bit of a danger. You weren't supposed to die until you were old, but when the time strand started unravelling, it put you in danger of dying before your time. So we had to watch over you. And some other people involved with the creation of that science."

"Other people," John asks softly. "Was Holmes –?"

"Yes. Another like me watched over him," Potter agrees and grins. "You should talk to him about it, sometimes. He caught his bodyguard some dozen times. Nearly drove poor Susan mad, let me tell you."

John blinks with shock. "Susan – a woman?"

"Yes, a woman. It's a different time we come from," Potter shrugs and then stands up, finishing his drink in a single gulp. "It was interesting, watching over you, John Watson. You had an interesting life."

John nods, feeling impossibly old and awkward. "It went by fast, though, didn't it?" he murmurs, sipping his drink and thinking of better days, when he’d been younger, and with Holmes, dashing about, solving crimes. He misses those days. He misses Holmes. How long has it been since he’d seen the man anyway? Not since Holmes had retired and moved to Sussex…

"There’s still time," Potter says, and pats his back one last time. "Besides, you've been touched by time now. So there’s a good chance you’ll have another try."

"What?" John asks, looking up, confused.

"People touched by the time tend to get tangled in it," Potter shrugs. "If I were a betting man, I'd say that you're going to end up being reborn eventually. It happens."

With that cryptic statement, John's guardian angel – no, his bodyguard through time – waves his hand in a final farewell and turns to leave. "So long, John Watson. Try not to get yourself killed while I'm not looking, alright?"

John looks after him, saying nothing. After a moment he turns to his glass and drinks what’s left in it. He thinks he might give Holmes a call, see if the man would mind it terribly if he popped by. It’s been long enough – and there are many things to talk about.


End file.
